19 January, 2009

Inauguration


With today's holiday and the upcoming inauguration shipping at VO will be a little slow. There is no mail pickup today and the roads may be so jammed tomorrow that I can only hope UPS and FedEx make it. Things will be back to normal on Wednesday.

Tom and Annette (and Alec) plan on going to the inauguration. I'll be here holding down the fort with the rest of the staff. Tom's initial idea was to ride down, but bikes are prohibited. Annette is hoping the Metro (subway) is not totally jammed. I've lived around Washington DC much of my life and have never seen an event of a magnitude even approaching this inauguration. We went to lunch near DuPont Circle yesterday and the whole city is overrun with charter buses and visitors and limousines. Wow; this really is exciting!

The photo is from: http://brickstarsearch.blogspot.com/ which is worth a visit to see the other Lego Obama photos. Of course our son Alec made an Obama Lego display in September and took it down to the local campaign office, where Annette volunteered.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama needs to drop by VO for some better fenders.

Anonymous said...

at least he has a rigid fork, silver cranks and a silver quill stem...

a trek though? dude clearly needs something more american made. say, a waterford with paul derailleurs and grafton cranks!

Anonymous said...

and yes, cheap treks are not made in america.

Tom said...

that's not a fender- its a trail a bike and he's riding with one of his kids. his bike seems a little small for him too.
Obama does not need a Waterford- he should be on a Velo Orange randonneusse!

Tom said...

DC was off the hook yesterday. THOUSANDS of people everywhere. METRO Sunday at midnight looked like Monday morning rush hour. I've been told to simply avoid METRO rail and take the bus- it will be less crowded and the buses can just blow past a stop if it's full and radio in a replacement. We shall see.

jimmythefly said...

If they're banning bikes, I'd think rollerblades would be the hot ticket. Then you can blow past the buses that are stuck in traffic with everyone else.

What's the deal with banning bikes? -how big of a radius is the ban in effect?

AJ said...

There's only a relatively small area that bikes are prohibited in.
Map.

Because the automobile road closures cover a larger area than the bicycle-prohibited zone, it's been said that Tuesday will be a great opportunity to see what a car-free downtown would be like.

Plus you can ride to one of WABA's bicycle valet stations, just outside the pedestrian-only zone. I'll be volunteering there!

Anonymous said...

If you're going to use a helmet, at least put it on correctly.

z-man said...

No, Waterford would be a good choice (no dis to VO) the same as he won't be cruising around in a Prius. I didn't vote for the guy but I sure wish him all the luck in the world.

Anonymous said...

Tom Wrote:
his bike seems a little small for him too.
end of quote
Aside from Leonard Zinn and possibly Co-motion, who'd be likely to have a just-about-to-become-EX-PRESIDENT-ELECT Obama new production bicycle in stock? Oh wait, Zinn is a custom builder. Besides, lately the shop guys seem to be sizing bikes like they're MTBs -- I nearly had to snarl to get the local REI to let me try a Novara Transfer in Medium. It fit, but I'm a touch under 5 foot 6ix inches, and the frame sizes go down to XS. I'm somewhat surprised they got something that close to Mr. Obama's size -- and a 700c wheeled hybrid would be the best suspect for something you could adjust to fit a tall guy.

By the way, soon-to-be-former-President Bush had been getting gift Trek MTBs every year. Whatever the Great Trek Bicycle Making Company has in store for the incoming administration, I just KNOW bikesnobnyc is going to have fun with it.

As a final aside, did anyone else catch the fuss over on the ibob list when people thought the Carter's Rivendells had been nicked?

doc said...

He's on a bike, and he looks happy. No problem.

Anonymous said...

yep, in that shot he's not a bike snob, he's just a happy dad.

mw

Anonymous said...

I think he would totally rock a porteur. I'm thinking a VO gentleman's bike

Way better than a Segway! ;)

Chris said...

that pic is great and doesn't do the Legoland display justice! I was just at Legoland on Monday and got to see the inaugeration display in action...VERY COOL! Of course all of miniland is cool, they even have some lego cyclists going over a bridge.

BTW- why is everything in french? kind of annoying...

Tom said...

"BTW- why is everything in french? kind of annoying..."

Beecuz eet iiz Frrennchee..